Non-governmental organizations are warning that some recycling organizations are preparing an 8- to 10-fold increase in product fees. This will affect all electrical and electronic devices, including solar systems.
“What happened about a month ago? The so-called recovery organizations raised the percentage they charge from the state fee. If until now the state fee was 1 leva per kilogram, they were charging about 10 stotinki. Currently, they are charging 50 stotinki. They will charge from July 1, which is a ten-fold increase. Even though they are increasing, they will still charge half of what a person or company would otherwise have to pay to the state if they paid directly to the state,” explained Eng. Dr. Dimitar Beleliev, Chairman of the Bulgarian Association of Electrical Engineering and Electronics.
“I can give an example of one of the most common appliances in Bulgarian households – refrigerators. As a result of the increase in fees from recycling organizations, a refrigerator with an average weight of about 60 kg will become more expensive by 80 to 100 BGN. This will be felt most noticeably by low-income households, since this fee is calculated per kilogram of appliance. They will be the most affected by the entire Bulgarian society in terms of price,” explained Gabriela Chiflichka, Secretary General of Applia Bulgaria.
The Association for Modern Trade also came out with a position: Given the expected accession of Bulgaria to the eurozone and the strict monitoring by the institutions regarding the increase in retail prices, we are extremely concerned by the information about the simultaneous announcement by the licensed collective recovery organizations of an increase in fees of 7-9 times. Companies that import and produce heat exchange equipment, household appliances, air conditioners, lighting fixtures, etc. are affected. equipment. Since the product fee is considered included in the selling price of the respective product, such an increase will inevitably be reflected in the end consumer, exerting price pressure on the most vulnerable groups of the population in a period of particular sensitivity to inflationary processes in the economy.
The Bulgarian Recycling Association (BAR), which is the largest organization of nationally represented companies operating in the recycling and waste management sector, points out that recovery organizations do not distribute profits by law. All collected royalties are used for the collection, transportation, dismantling and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment.
It should be noted here that the fees that importers and manufacturers of electrical equipment are required to pay are some of the lowest in Europe, and that they were set in 2008 and have not been updated since then.
“The state product fee is defined in the relevant regulation, which is published on the website of the Ministry of Environment and Water and is dated before the 2016 changes. According to this regulation, there is a state product fee, which is fixed by the state and the recovery organizations charge the corresponding fees to producers and importers as a percentage of this fee. Currently, the increase is 10 times higher than previous levels and that is where this danger of price increases comes from,” commented Gabriela Chiflichka.
However, the state product tax is higher, so it is proposed to reduce it.
“If we compare the state product fee with the average recovery fees for the EU, we will see that the heat exchange equipment in the Bulgarian state product fee is 4 times higher. These are refrigerators, air conditioners, for large appliances it is 3 times higher. This includes washing machines, dishwashers, water heaters, and for small appliances the state product fee is nearly 8 times higher, compared to the average European prices.”
The Ministry of Environment and Water should reduce the state product fee by about 10-12 times over a period of 2 years, so that the market can be regulated and operated at economically justified levels. We have not received a response from the Ministry of Environment and Water at the moment.
BAR points out that the volumes of waste that must be collected and recycled are increasing with each passing year. The quantities are increasing dramatically and are currently many times larger than in 2008, when the amounts of fees due were determined. With every attempt by our members to update their fees in accordance with reality, attacks begin against them.
“For us, the situation and the issue are economic, the allegation of a cartel is absurd. Our companies are solving a problem that arises in our business, unexpectedly provoked by external factors. We want to solve the problem without affecting the market. Our sector – household electrical appliances – is highly competitive. There are dozens of brands on the market that compete with each other, while recovery organizations are an extremely limited number of companies that impose the same conditions on manufacturers and importers,” Gabriela Chiflichka pointed out.
“All the money they receive, by law, must be spent on this type of activity – collection and utilization of electrical and electronic scrap. This electronic scrap, which is the saddest thing in this whole picture, in 99% of cases is exported for processing outside Bulgaria. Because in Bulgaria there is no one to process it first and second, there is not enough market to make it interesting to potential processors of such electronic scrap. On the one hand, we do not receive anything – 95% of companies and end customers do not pay, hence we create a lack of market, hence instead of processing it and even what is collected in Bulgaria, we send it to Germany, England and other more developed countries and they use our resources. Electronic scrap is a resource that at the moment, figuratively speaking, by not paying these fees, we are giving it away to foreign economies,” added Dr. Eng. Dimitar Beleliev.
BASEL points out why eco-taxes are so often not paid.
“If you order a phone from a Chinese website, when it arrives to you, you have to remember that you have to pay this fee and go and pay it. I don’t know if you know anyone who has done it – I don’t. If you are a company that wants to put photovoltaic panels on your roof and you buy the product from a German company, bring it in, you have an obligation to go and pay the fee – no one pays these fees. What’s worse is that most companies don’t even know that these fees exist, that they have to be paid. That’s where the differences come from, when the market is small, the market is small, and from there on the price of demand increases.”
If electronics recovery organizations do not function, no one will meet Bulgaria’s national collection and recycling goals, BAR reminds, and there is a real chance that our country will be sanctioned with hundreds of millions of euros by the EU.
Editor: Svetozar Kostadinov
Source: BNT
